The Diary

19 March 2006: Albion Crash Versus United - A Hard Rain Gonna Fall?

Our calendar most certainly proclaimed today to be plonked well and truly in the middle of March, but to be perfectly honest, it might just as well have been the middle of January. As we journeyed to The Hawthorns, our car thermometer showed the outside temperature to be a wonderfully-tropical 3 degrees Centigrade. By way of comparison, most domestic fridges are set to run around a degree or so higher than that ? no wonder most of the Smethwick populace we saw going about their daily tasks bore a distinct resemblance to Michelin Man. Dull slate-grey sky, bare trees, still, despite the fact April would be well and truly grabbing us by the sphericals with the passing of but fourteen days. Spring might have well and truly sprung in theory elsewhere, but in so doing, it also seemed to have taken some considerable care to completely bypass the Black Country.

Combine that gloomy ambience with the equally-daunting prospect of having to play that nice Mister Ferguson?s ever so sportsmanlike young men today, and there you have it - near-perfect conditions for the rapid onset and proliferation of mass chronic depression. Ours, not theirs, I mean. You have to admit, when it reaches the stage where you get to grab your coat to go to the game, while saying to each other: ?Come on ? let?s get it over with?.? there?s clearly something of a motivational problem lurking away in the background, isn?t there?

The long walk up Halfords Lane, in the face of a biting wind that seemed to have booked an express ticket straight from The Ural Mountains to the West Midlands, was cheek-and-lip-numbingly awful. No wonder we dived into the welcoming arms of The Hawthorns pub with far more enthusiasm than we?d shown whilst exiting our car. It was, above all other considerations WARM, wonderfully so, in fact, but as we stepped through the doors, something of a shock. All those expected bodies for The Big One ? where the hell were they? Certainly not in the pub, which is one jolly good reason why we managed to secure a table for our little group without too much trouble. And that, dear reader, brings me to our second little mystery of the day. The Lewis clan ? where were they? As things turned out, we needn?t have worried, as Bethany and her garrulous dad were spotted entering the place about five minutes after we?d first dropped anchor there. But why no Carly, we wondered?

Perhaps I should have guessed, really. It?s that mysterious ailment called ?Being An Adolescent?: symptoms revolve around an insatiable urge to indulge in conspicuous consumption big-time, in town, and in company of as many mates as can reasonably be drummed up from various holes and corners within a matter of minutes. And all that while checking out the daunting array of spotty little ?Kevins? haunting the same shopping centre. Understandably, The Noise wasn?t best pleased about this, as daughter?s actions at that very late stage had rendered Pater unable to find some other idiot ? er, belay my last, let?s try ?eager Albion exile?, shall we? ? wanting to go to the game instead. A palpable financial hit when money?s pretty tight, let me tell you.

Whatever reason had prompted the early arrival of the Noise plus sprog, the same must have held for The Fart, who rolled in precisely five minutes after his Stokie chum did. The cold climes, possibly, no doubt evocative of similar icy days and nights spent dodging muck and bullets on the Western Front, all those years ago. And, as we nattered among ourselves ? primarily as a defence mechanism, I would say: that way, the pain of ending up on the losing side is considerably lessened ? on the big screen towards the front of the room, Villa were getting hammered by Everton. About the only thing that did go right, today ? bar Blues losing to Spurs directly after our game had finished, of course.

It was abundantly clear to everyone the mood needed lifting from right out of its pre-match blackness, and quickly. Then, The Fart found just the thing sitting on our table, no less ? one of those huge comic supporters? hats, in this case, one looking very much like the sort of thing well-dressed leprechauns stick on their heads when wanting to keep warm. This one was slightly unusual, though ? Guinness logos abounded everywhere, including a couple of locations you just wouldn?t think of. But back to The Fart, who grabbed the hat with lightning speed, stuck it on his own head, and as he did so, reached for a couple of empty beer bottles sitting on the table, quietly minding their own business. Cue El Tel, hat on bonce, inane grin completely splitting his facial features asunder, mind, bottle in each hand, and all the while intoning in a wonderful mock-Irish accent: ?How dare dey call me an alcoholic, Sor!?..? It?s moments like that you?d preserve for all eternity, if you could. Our next best means of doing so being ?Im Indoors?s mobile phone camera, we had to make do with that instead. The pic? A bit grainy, maybe, but a cracker, nevertheless.

Time to go our separate ways, then: to each his own, or, more accurately, whatever bit of the ground they felt most comfortable with, and what they could best afford. There were still around 25 minutes remaining to kick-off by the time we finally took our seats, and the ground only, I?d guess, around two-thirds full, but even so, something was taking place out there that chilled me to the marrow ? and not the cold to blame this time, either. My sense of displeasure was primarily wrapped around the sneaky way the club sponsors, T-Mobile, had taken this fixture over, practically. Lots of little willing Oompha Loompha look-alikes to be seen swarming ant-like around the place, and not a Willie Wonka or Chocolate Factory in sight, either. Just toting those pink ?hands? we saw last term, lots of the damn things.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the ground, something else hugely redolent of times gone by was stirring. Remember those giant flags that used to be all the rage at one time? The ones that used to get passed around ad infinitum, as glee-clubs innumerable latched onto the germ of what used to be a pretty good idea? Well, that was T-Mobile?s latest stunt, perpetrated, this time, on us. Just be good chaps and chapesses, and pass this flag over your heads when ordered to do so, there?s a love ? OK? The superbly co-ordinated presence of the ubiquitous Mister Woo showing off his consummate ball skills to all and sundry, provided something of a diversion ? and, agreed, it was relevant to the task in hand ? but watching someone like that do party tricks with a football isn?t quite the same thing as watching someone taking a ?proper? game by the scruff of the neck, then proceeding to boss it completely.

The particular sort of artificial pre-match entertainment I saw on offer today doesn?t go down at all well with me, unfortunately. Is this what football has come to? Orchestrated support, totally devoid of any form of spontaneity, wit and, moreover, passion? I?d have had much more fun down the local hospital being subjected to invasive and painful iagnostic tests, I reckon, and that?s the genuine truth of the matter, I swear.

But onto the game proper. As expected, the game had been a sell-out, complete and utter. (Ooer ? bit of a Freudian slip, there, methinks!) A cursory glance in the direction of those parts of the ground last to fill with eager punters revealed there to be very few such spaces going begging. Sure, there were some to be had in the away end, it would seem, but I suspected that was largely due to the fact they?d encountered some hold-up or other on the M5/M6 interchange thingie.

United had gone with a formidable cast list out there, but no Van Nistelrooy ? on the subs bench, and never used either, not once. Also there, but in a United shirt this time, was our former chum Kieran Richardson, the lad who starred in our heroic survival bid come the tail-end of last season. As far as we were concerned, for whatever reason, our leader had opted to go with Campbell kicking off things up front, with both of our current recognised strikers being plonked onto the bench until needed. Even as I heard the teams being read out on the PA system prior to the start, I knew with a grim certainty that our leader had dropped an almighty clanger there. Why on earth were we not picking a side capable of really going at them right from the start? United are good ? but they?re not that good. As old Lance-Corporal Jones, of Dad?s Army fame, would have said: ?They don?t like it up ?em?.?

The true extent of our leader?s blunder only became apparent after the kick-off, when we did at least try and take the game to them. Both Jonathan Greening and Curtis Davis went pretty close with their early efforts ? and it was Davis?s attempt that seemed to me the most instructive of the two. United, you see, had an Achilles heel ? they were particularly weak when trying to defend headers (that?s how The Duke got one back later in the game), and had we thought about it a little more, instead of waiting until the inevitability of conceding before trying to change things, we might ? just might ? have finished the game feeling considerably more pleased with the final result than we eventually did.

So far, so good ? with a little more luck in the box, we might well have struck oil ? but then, United began to pile on the pressure. At first our rearguard soaked up the additional work exceedingly well, but being Albion, and therefore living permanently in the shadow of the self-destruct button being accidentally pressed, something had to give, eventually. Which it did with around 18 minutes on the clock, from a corner, former Cottager Saha being the perpetrator of the headed damage. Our marking? Something shocking: as I saw it, such was the radius of the Albion cordon sanitaire around him when he leaped up to pot the black, you would have thought he?d either ran extremely short of deodorant and was far too stingy to buy some, or he?d gone all Greta Garbo on us all, and merely ?wanted to be alone?. Whatever the motivation, he didn?t half break some Baggies hearts with that headed strike of his.

Come 27 minutes, a slightly-surreal interlude. As per usual, the United following was both noisy and unwavering in the sheer quality of its continual, yet fervent, support for The Reds. Here?s one for the book, then. How many of you knew they actually employ people to write all those blasted songs of theirs, for example? I was vaguely aware of some sort of formal structure existing, but certainly not to the extent demonstrated by those people?s vocal efforts today. And it?s one such ditty that sure caused a fair bit of head-scratching on the part of my other half.

Given that our lot, still stunned by that goal, were more or less out of it as a serious force, an ominous, funeral, even, silence descended upon the ground ? something that made the sheer volume and quality of their song-fest all the more remarkable to listen to. But there could still be grave misunderstandings, of course. Simon, on hearing the true extent of their collective lung-power for a very long time indeed: ?They sound as though they?re singing? Jersey mids? up there!?. ?Naw,? said the chap on ?Im Indoor?s left. ?it?s ?thirty years? they?re going on about!? Aha! Now ?Im Indoors could hear for himself what they were on about ? but, as he so plainly lamented afterwards, now the game was over, could someone please explain the precise significance of that phrase?

Happily, after that, they then ventured into territory well tried and trusted in the past. Take ?We will fight, fight, fight for United, ?till we win the Football League? for example. Vintage 1968, that one; so why did it gain such instant favour with their song-smiths at the time, then? Possibly because of the US Marines-Vietnam connection, the song concerning itself primarily with ?The Halls Of Montezuma? and ?the shores of Tripoli ? and, by way of association, John Wayne!

Meanwhile, back in the Halfords, total exasperation was settling in: Said The Bloke Sitting Next To Me? after yet another Albion move foundered upon the badly charted depths of ineptitude: ?Paul Williams would have been better than Campbell in the side today??? I say - now steady on, chaps! And as the true extent of my next-seat-neighbour?s fury manifested itself in the form of petty fouls and overall carelessness when on the park, it was The Bloke In Front Of Me?s turn to dish out something out. Sadly, his ?repertoire? was considerably less than most of what I heard emanating from the delicately-sculpted lips of my other chums, so once more, I was subjected to a constant diet of ?Rubbish!? and ?Change it, Robson!?. Mind you, it didn?t need abuse from our lot to spark off fragile tempers: from the away end came a chant of ?Robbo, Robbo, give us a wave..? to which the silly sod did! That went down like a lead balloon with our followers, and understandably so, too.

But amidst all the fury, the angst and the torment, there was one Albion player in particular who stood out like an ever-shining beacon, today ? and that was Joe Kamara. Time and time again, his was the hand guiding most of our attempts to get back into the game ? and, as I said before, early on, he was extremely unlucky not to get one himself. With but a few minutes remaining of that first half, he excelled himself once more, this time with a lovely jinking run that took him right into the heart of our eighteen-yard ?Terra Incognito?, beating one, two , three to do it, then letting fly from long-range, their keeper having to concede the corner to shift it. I reckon most people at the ground thought that one was well and truly on its way in ? certainly, Kamara did. Lovely stuff. What with that effort, plus more from the likes of Inamoto and that man Kamara, the situation at half-time looked bad, but not irretrievably-so. ?We?ll get ?em in the second half, Baggies!? bawled The Eternal Optimist, seated several rows further back, as both sides left the field of play. Blimey, I?ll have whatever it is he has!

And, as Mister Moto did his thing on the pitch once more, news came in from the West Ham versus Pompey game, the one that had accreted a considerable amount of controversy around it by virtue of the fact The Hammers, very mindful of their forthcoming Round 6 tie that Monday, had gone for fielding a weakened side. To no-one?s surprise in particular, the Hammers were two down at half-time, and not likely to get back into it. Period. With friends like that, who needs enemies? Our sole crumb of comfort on this bitterly-cold day? News The Dingles were losing at Reading.

Time to suffer the second helping, then. Out came both sides, like good little players, all at once, and on time ? no Mourhino-style mind-games this Saturday. Given the first half had looked pretty grim, just what kind of depths could our lot plumb over the course of the next 45, I wondered? One thing was certain ? Kevin Campbell wouldn?t be taking any further part in the proceedings. Off he came, and on went Kanu, dreadlocks and all.

We?d hardly kicked off, really, when Albion became intimately involved in what had to be the mother of all let-offs. Ronaldo was the perpetrator of the damage, ghosting through our rearguard as if it wasn?t there, then slamming a shot on a parallel course with the goal-line, but about two or three yards in front of it. All it needed to really spoil our day was the delicate touch of boot to ball, thereby diverting the thing straight into the net with a minimum of effort. Luckily, no-one else was as astute as the United man, so the chance went begging instead.

Kanu then had chance to open his account, heading just over the crossbar with his effort ? they really were vulnerable to headed balls in the box, and in retrospect, I?m genuinely surprised they didn?t exploit this particular weakness of United far more than they actually did ? but, just to demonstrate his total versatility, just seconds later, there was the lad once more, helping out right at the back, just as we were being passed to death by United.

Their second strike, with just 18 minutes of the half gone, had a certain air of inevitability about it. Once more, Saha was the man responsible, and the strike stemmed right from a midfield cock-up, in which we gave the ball away quite needlessly. All it needed after that was for Ronaldo to thread the ball through to his chum, and despite The Pole In Goal?s best efforts to do so, he stood no chance whatsoever of stopping it. More of ?There?s Only One Bryan Robson? from the amateur Mancunian male voice choir at the back of the Smethwick ? fortunately, our leader had a little more gumption about him than last time, and didn?t take the bait. Then, just minutes later: ?Your support is reffin? S**t!? Er, yes ? quite correct. Just try losing as many as we have lately, and you?d get disillusioned, believe you me.

With 25 gone, yet another throw of the dice was attempted by our backroom staff. On came The Duke, and off went Kozac. Well might a nearby wag shout: ?Who loves ya, baby?? as per the lollipop-sucking Seventies namesake. But at least the introduction of The Duke, albeit miles after we should have done it in the first place, did restore some degree of respectability to the scoreline. With just 15 minutes remaining, Albion got a corner. Everyone came up to give the ball, if possible, a little bit of a helping-hand into the back of the net ? so well done, The Duke, for maintaining that recently-improved scoring record of his, with a very competent header.

For a very brief period of time, hope was resurgent. We?d got one back, so what were our chances of hitching a ride on The Duke?s coat-tails, then? Then reality, in the form of some quite baffling refereeing decisions, reasserted itself, and suitably chastened, we then decided discretion was the better part of valour. When the final whistle did sound, it was to an almost-apathetic Hawthorns: indeed, most had hit the homeward trail long before. Something tells me that irrespective of official weather forecasting, we?re booked for a spell in the Championship - and baggy no returns. Just how long will it take to dismantle the side we?ve currently got, I wonder? As ?Im Indoors said during a protracted spell in which the overall standard of our play had been anything but that routinely expected of sides at this level: ?Why the hell are we bothering to do this??

And Finally?.. Remember that huge Irish hat that The Fart misappropriated in the boozer, and had us all in stitches with when he put it on? Well, it was directly after that the real owner ? yes, as Oirish as de River Liffey, he was, bejabers ? told us a little-known fact about that country?s most successful export, or rather the place where the famous treacly-black stuff is now produced in quantity. The justly-famous Guinness brewery can be found in Dublin city centre, apparently ? right next to the building that serves as HQ for Alcoholics Anonymous!

 - Glynis Wright

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